Gender Inequality in College Athletics
Gender Inequality in College Athletics
Title IX is a pathetic attempt to fix the inequality seen in college athletics. Title IX suggests that colleges are supposed to treat female and male athletes the same and not favor one over the other. However, recent NCAA investigations have revealed that the NCAA spends between $1700 and $2229 more for each male athlete than each female athlete during NCAA championship events. This was seen during the 2021 March Madness when the men were provided with a large weightlifting facility with access to many machines and different kinds of equipment. The women were given one rack of dumbbells and a stack of old yoga mats. In the 2021 Softball college world series the female athletes were not even provided showers in the locker rooms, yet the baseball players had showers, saunas, and free massages. In my own high school, there was a locker room for each male sport, yet all of the female athletes had to share a closet sized “locker room.” There were three men’s weight rooms and the girls had to bring dumbbells into the choir room to workout. Even though Title IX attempts to remove inequality, the NCAA gives little regard to the idea of increasing funding for female athletics. In a majority of the incidents of inequality, the NCAA tries to cover it up until female athletes have gathered the support of the media. It is only when the NCAA fears bad press that they will try to solve the issue. This shows that not only does the NCAA really only care about money, but their promises of promoting gender equality are empty. The NCAA will only try to fix a problem if the problem has generated the attention of the public and they risk losing peoples’ financial support. The NCAA only cares about gender equality if it is convenient to do so.
This problem starts at the very beginning of a female athlete’s career, when female athletes are given less attention, less funding, and less access to facilities. Society tells young girls that they are not as valuable as their male classmates because they are girls. Society tells girls to give up playing sports because “you throw like a girl” or “you run like a girl.” This insult will devalue an athlete just because of their sex. Society will tell an 8-year-old that she will never have important athletic success. Mediocre professional male sports teams will still get more attention and praise than successful female teams. Why should young girls feel inclined to pursue a sport if all of her peers tell her she is not important? Inequality runs rampant on social media like Instagram and TikTok. A post about a female athlete’s performance is filled with comments from boys saying that they could do better or that the sport is easier. When I was growing up playing softball, my achievements were not as celebrated as much because the “ball is bigger and easier to hit,” “the fences are shorter,” and the “pitching is slower.” The idea that girls sports are not as important as boys sports is engrained into every child when the boys are playing in nicer facilities with nicer equipment, when coaches use “____ like a girl” to denote poor performance, and when replays of a football scrimmage gets more air time than the women’s volleyball national championship.
Counterarguments to this problem almost always come from men and are either suggesting money or biology. People will say that men’s sports are more important because they are capable of more, or they are better athletes than women because of genetic factors. Although this argument is not the major one, it still affects the self-worth of female athletes. Most people will argue that women’s sports are not as broadcasted because they do not generate as much revenue. How can something generate revenue when there is no advertising? This argument is invalid because in the past 10 years, there have been at least 100K more viewers on average for the women’s college world series vs. the men’s college world series. These are the same events that the softball players were denied access to facilities like showers because of a lack of funding. Much of the community of female college athletes hold the same opinion. A majority of female athletes fail to speak out because they have never seen it as an issue since they grew up being taught that their sport did not matter. Some female athletes do speak up however they are met with unwilling and sexist coaches and administrators.
The best way to solve this issue is to bring awareness to the situation and hold the NCAA accountable for their actions. Female athletes that have a platform need to use it to advocate not only for equality within college athletics, but also need to fight for equality within youth sports. Female athletes in situations where they experience inequality need to document their situation whether it be filming the facilities or documenting sexist conversations so that the NCAA will have no chance to try to cover it up. The NCAA needs to equalize the funding given to athletes and the treatment of the athletes should not depend on what is between an athlete’s legs.